Good news! At long last.

Amid the doom and gloom some positivity as Oxford City Council rubberstamps a multi-million pound plan for leisure centres across the county.

The cornerstone of the project could be a new competition pool at Blackbird Leys.

It will mean farewell to the flagging Temple Cowley Pool and could be polished off for the public to use by the Olympic year 2012.

A competition pool also means investment can be attracted from Sport England.

This is very good news for the city’s swimming clubs – and perhaps those who lost the use of Peers pool recently.

But also part of the plan is a £1.7m injection into the ice rink – which is in even worse condition.

The well-used facility could certainly do with a lick of paint and an upgrade.

So, it looks as if the move to tie-up with a trust – Fusion Lifestyles – has paid off.

It is run in a similar way to SOLL leisure, which operates facilities for the Vale of White Horse District Council and ploughs money it makes back into centres.

In the current climate, there is no way the city council could have afforded to carry out this work on its own.

All we hope now is that the bulldozers move in soon.